Matt Bush-USA TODAY Sports How Did We Get Here?
Ben Howland’s impact on the fortunes of the Mississippi State basketball program were immediate upon his hiring in 2015. The former head coach at Pitt and UCLA took over a program that had won 13 SEC games in Rick Ray’s three-year tenure and improved it from 159th to 78th in KenPom in his first season. He got the Bulldogs to a .500 record in his second year, then 25 wins and an NIT Final Four run in his third year before delivering the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid in 11 years in 2019. Mississippi State took a slight step back in 2019-20, dropping to 48th in KenPom though they won 20 games for the third year in a row and actually improved…
